We are devising a sensitive new set of strategies for elucidating the structures of carbohydrates. Strategy #1: Attach the carbohydrate to a specially designed carrier peptide to greatly enhance its sensitivity to MALDI-mass spectrometric analysis. Subject portions of the carbohydrate linked to the carrier peptide to a series of digestions with appropriate combinations of glycosidases. Measure the effects of these various glycosidase mixtures on the carbohydrate coupled to the carrier peptide. Derive carbohydrate linkage, composition and sequence information from the results. First experiments demonstrate that this approach is highly effective.